As a part of a wedding stationery suite, most couples send out directions cards to help their friends and family find their way to the ceremony site and the reception. But, if you have guests visiting from out of town, you might consider something a little more high tech, like Wedding Mapper.

This interactive site asks you to enter the city, state and date of your wedding, then generates a Google map of the area that you can use to mark where the ceremony and reception will be. But the fun doesn’t stop there–you can add icons for you and your local relatives’ homes, your favorite restaurants, entertainment venues, hotels, airports and local attractions.

You can also add personalized messages and images that will pop up when guests first access the site and when they place their cursor over any location you highlight. Plus, you can use the site to look up local vendors and connect with the wedding community in the city you select.

This online tool is easy to use, really fun to do and totally free! I think it’s a great way to help your guests become acquainted with your city and to get everyone excited about your upcoming nutpials!

So I finally decided it was time, time to choose the all-important save the dates! Since the majority of my friends and family are coming from overseas, deciding to include these cards was a necessity. Not only is it fun to send out early announcements of your wedding but it is also out of common courtesy. Your guests will need the extra time to make flight and hotel arrangements and take off from work. I know because as soon as I got engaged my family was eager to know all the details of my wedding. The sooner you can get those out, the better! This will increase the chances that the people you love will be able to join you on your wedding day.

Wedding Paper Divas has a lot of chic choices to pick from. After perusing the site for several days, I finally decided to choose a photo card. This is a great way to make use of any engagement photos you have and add personality to your save the date cards. There were so many out there to choose from, some with juicy colors great for summer like the Canna photo cards and others with perfect nature scenes great for spring such as the new Little Bird Save the Dates.

But I finally selected a simple card that perfectly suits my fiancé and I am completely happy with my choice. I was a little indecisive at first. But who could blame me with all the great new designs? After a lot of flip flopping though, I finally made my decision. Can you keep a secret? Guess which one I chose? I couldn’t resist the new Wild Grass photo save the date cards in Sage.

Wild Grass